Category Archives: Intellectual Property

There are many countries around the world that have a system in place for protecting minor inventions, such as Germany, Australia, Japan and South Korea. China has implemented this type of system via utility model patents. The Chinese Utility Model is generally meant to protect simpler improvements such as new apparatus, shapes or structures (processes and compositions of matter are excluded), but utility model patents can actually be used broadly by companies because they tend to be faster, easier and less expensive to obtain, while providing many of the same benefits and features as invention patents. However, unlike Chinese invention patents which can last for 20 years from the filing date, utility model patents have only a 10 year term of protection.

The importance of trademarks cannot be understated in this day and age. Trademarks allow a company to establish brands that communicate, at a glance, their standards and qualities.With competition for popular products at an all-time high, trademarks allow companies to stand out from the crowd and give their potential customers an expectation of the positive […]

Disney Imagineers recognized several years ago that there is a need for robots that can safely interact with children. With this in mind, they designed a robot with soft and deformable body parts. To test their design, the Imagineers prototyped a small toy-sized robot with soft body parts (e.g., a soft skin), and found that […]